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Monday, 3 September 2012

TEFL Scams ll: What To Watch Out For

Dear Readers.

We are not going to name names - this would be unprofessional - but we
do want to let you know of some of the TEFL scams which happen globally
so that you, someone who is probably new to TEFL and who probably
wouldn't be aware of the common trappings of choosing a TEFL school,
can form a more balanced opinion when choosing your TEFL school. I have
for the past 15+ years been actively involved in the TEFL
business and this means that I am very much aware of what goes on online
regarding TEFL/TESOL. It is my job to make sure that we are up to date
on TEFL-related online issues.

The first examples of dodgy practice occurs in TEFL forum chat rooms:

1. If you can picture an online forum chat room as an actual solid room,
with sofas and chairs, then picture almost half of those seats (or
more) being occupied by TEFL school representatives, casually hiding
their faces away from detection behind a newspaper or magazine - some of
them with fake moustaches, some wearing shades, others wearing opposite
gender garments. This is essentially how reality translates on the
online forums. For a more clearer image try to think of Monty Python's The Life of Brian and the stone throwing scene, except one should ask if there are any TEFL Providers here? :-)
An example is as follows:
A real person interested in taking a TEFL course goes online and signs
up for a forum page. They write a post asking which course is worth
taking. Within a few hours or days an "independent" person joins the
discussion, recommending a specific school, quoting the school's website
page and adding "their two cents" as to how great and life changing the
experience was. Now, in some cases this will be an authentic piece of
feedback. However, I would say that in most cases it is simply the work
of a school self-promoting. The same also works for negative feedback:
someone asks about a school and a person or few people come on and
attack the school.

2. There are some people who create very strong personas on TEFL-related
website forums and who strive to be the authority when it comes to
TEFL/TESOL knowledge. They are always there to give a tip, some
feedback, and they spend vast amounts of seemingly their own free time
helping out newbies who are undecided about which course they wish to
take. Such lovely people who choose to devote their free time helping
out people in the TEFL world! Or something sinister instead perhaps? A
prime example of this occurred a few years back on a leading Czech
Republic forum. A user named 'John Cold' created a framework where he
was considered THE person to ask when it came to TEFL courses and
practically anything TEFL-related. Whenever someone would mention a TEFL
course he would either damn it immediately (of course in a clever way
which was insinuating rather than obviously damning), or praise it as
"highly reputable". It became apparent that this individual was spending
vast amounts of their personal time on the forum and obviously had a
bias towards one particular program (either he openly praised this
course when someone asked about it, or he offered this course as an
option if another course was asked about). It was also obvious that this
John Cold character would instigate posts with other user names he had
set up, which he would then respond to. Who was John Cold? John Cold
(and his other aliases on other TEFL sites) was exposed as a fraud by
another school (KUDOS to them) but the true identity of this user was
never openly published. "John Cold" is the owner of one of our
competitor TEFL courses and he retains a prolific online presence today
both through his online blog and forum posts in his own (real) name, and
through self-generated fake user names which he uses as his tools for
self-promotion on various sites. He is based outside of the Czech
Republic for most of the year and successfully hides behind abroad ip
addresses, undetected by forum administrators. Even on his blog he
appears to have created some anonymous users to add
as "members" so he can give the impression that his school is somehow a
popular course. This individual is a disgrace to the profession!

TEFL Review Sites:

Reviews are definitely useful guides when looking for feedback about a course.
Most of us who have traveled and looked for a place to stay have
referred to tripadvisor.com for example. There is no doubt that
tripadvisor is an independent website, but what of TEFL review sites? We
believe that some review sites are authentic and some sites are owned
by TEFL schools. It has even been claimed recently that a Prague TEFL
school has set up their own reviews website and frankly I am not shocked
at all by this news. While reviews are useful if questioning whether a
school actually exists at all, I personally don't see TEFL reviews as
being that useful. Think about it, when you come to take a course you
have probably never taken a TEFL course before, so how do you compare
your course with other courses? Still, TEFL schools are very sensitive
about reviews because they can have an impact on business and as an
example a competitor was recently banned from a reviews website for
threatening legal action for receiving a negative review. ok, so that is
clearly OTT and I agree with the reviews site warning message (now
deleted) that they could have simply responded to the review in a clear
and transparent manner, but this does demonstrate how important this
particular school saw that negative review (also the alleged fact,
warning also now deleted, that this school responded to the initial
negative review by having 5 positive reviews posted in the course of a
few hours on a Sunday afternoon, all apparently received from the same
ip address). Now if a school is prepared to cruise the forums, posting
under various aliases, then the same must apply to review sites too. It
does. At ITTP we recommend www.tefl-reviews.com to our graduates and clients
because this site actually bothers to check and verify reviews (as
opposed to being a free for all regardless if you took the course or
not) and it looks to us that they are a truly independent reviews
website because they have posted warnings throughout their site with
respect to the authenticity of certain reviews regarding various TEFL
course providers located around the world. If you are interested in our
verified student feedback then you can view here:ONSITE Course REVIEWSONLINE Course REVIEWS
If you have taken one of our courses then we invite you to post a
review, if you feel like it and if you think it is appropriate.
Thank you.

Email addresses and Facebook profiles:

There is no doubt that authentic graduate feedback is important.
If a client requests graduate feedback then we immediately place them in
touch with graduates who have clearly expressed that they don't mind
having people ask them questions about the course. Sometimes people
offer their email address as contact, sometimes their Facebook profile,
sometimes both. However, most people who take the course would rather
not have their Facebook profile or email address published and simply
can't be bothered to answer emails regarding the course once their
course is complete, either days, weeks, months, or years later. This is
how real life works. Think back to that example of booking a hotel. How
many times have you actually taken the initiative to sign up to
tripadvisor and write a review? How many times would you have agreed to
the hotel publishing your Facebook or email address to potential clients
who would literally bombard you with questions. Life doesn't work like
that. There is a school in Prague which claims to have access to
literally hundreds of email addresses and Facebook profiles of graduates
which they will put you in touch with so that you can form a clearer
opinion about their product and hopefully take their course. At the very
worst some of those contacts will be fake, probably created by the
school's administrators. Almost as bad is that the school apparently
pressurizes its graduates into being marketing tools after course
graduation. But still, a year down the line would you be available at the
drop of a hat to spend a significant amount of your personal time
responding to emails and Facebook chat from potential clients of the
TEFL course which you took? Or would you perhaps be willing to reply to
one or two people at most and then get on with what is happening in your
current life now? I think it's clear where the logic is.

"International" TEFL companies:

There are actual schools which operate in the city or country where they
claim to operate, and there are agencies which create websites and who
claim to run courses in these cities and countries but who don't. They
are just middle person agencies. If you go through one of these
companies you will give them your course deposit (actually a commission
in some cases) and then you will get rerouted to the actual school which
offers the TEFL certification. You could argue that this is just common
business practice but it shouldn't be. The company which you secure
your course place with should be the school which you study with.
Period. If you choose ITTP then from the moment of your first
communication with us you can be assured that you will only be dealing
with ITTP subsequently throughout your whole TEFL/TESOL course career.
This ensures a secure and high standard of business communication. Some
schools use agents. We don't.

There are lots of good, reputable TEFL/TESOL schools, and
(unfortunately) the odd one here and there which bring disrespect to the
profession. Once again, we will name no names as this would be
unprofessional but we hope that the above information at least enables
you to be more savvy with regards to the initial stages of choosing a
TEFL course.

Whichever school you do choose we wish you all the best with your course and your teaching English career.

ITTP BLOG Pageviews since 7 Nov 2011:

A short message from the ITTP TEFL Team:

Hi! :-)
Pls feel free to read through our school blog and if you have any questions regarding any posts or comments made then pls do feel free to contact us either directly through email or via the website contact tabs: web@tefl-tesol-online.com / www.tefl-tesol-online.com .Thank you for your time and wishing you a great day! The ITTP Team